A mom + daughter's adventure through the Gilmore Girl's reading list.
“They said they’d been shot at. Spat on. Refused entrance to the local diner. The movie theatre. The dry goods store. They said the signs in the windows were the same wherever they went: NO JAPS ALLOWED. Life was easier, they said, on this side of the fence.”
Read More“In her frustration, she forgot she was in the middle of chopping chilies and rubbed her eye. Immediately a sensational pain exploded in her eyeball. It was enough to make her cry out. She on the tap and twisted her head beneath it. To the curative powers of cold running water, the chili burn was immune. Nazneen gasped as the water ran up her nose. She focused on the pain, rising up to meet it head on, boring into it, challenging it to do its worst. The burn was fierce and it unleashed in her an equal ferocity. Suddenly her entire being lit up with anger. I will decide what to do. I will say what happens to me. I will be the one. A charge ran through her body and she cried out again, this time out of sheer exhilaration.”
Read MoreDon’t read this book. Seriously.
Read More“This is the only part of the interview that resembles a professional exchange. We will dance around certain words, such as “nanny” and “child care,” because they would be distasteful and will never, ever, actually acknowledge that we are talking about my working for her. This is the Holy Covenant of the Mother/Nanny relationship; this is a pleasure—not a job.”
Read MoreThis, by the way, is why we read books we don’t always enjoy. It’s why we read stories with protagonists whose choices we find objectionable or worse at times.
Read More“Scarlett had thrown herself on the bed and was sobbing at the top of her voice, sobbing for her lost youth and the pleasure of youth that were denied her, sobbing with the indignation and despair of a child who once could get anything she wanted by sobbing and now knows that sobbing can no longer help her.”
Read More"Then, focusing her gaze on Sidda, Caro said, ‘You’ve got Ya-Ya blood, Siddalee. Whether you like it or not. And sure, it’s tainted. But what the hell in life isn’t?’"
Read More“I always felt that if a man was impressive and well liked, that nothing…”
—Willy Loman (Death of a Salesman, Act 2)
“Jim, this is nice,” I says. “I wouldn’t want to be nowhere else but here. Pass me along another hunk of fish and some hot corn-bread.”
Re-reading this classic felt like that. Hanging out on the barge with Huck and Jim – eating corn bread. I didn’t want to be anywhere else. There are stories that shape us in a real, measurable way. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is one of those stories for me.
Read MoreI woke up on the day of our watch party like a kid on Christmas. I was SO excited. I put on my Gilmore Girl’s tee-shirt (thanks Mom!), grabbed Rory and my husband who so kindly dressed up like Luke (heart eyes forever babe), and rushed to my parents. We spent the morning hanging up decorations and gathering all the junk food within a 5-mile radius. And, of course, brewing as much coffee as possible.
Read MoreNick Hornby’s novels tend read like a cross between a journal and a screen play. It’s no surprise that many have been turned into movies. They are chic lit but for men, too; bubble gum; beach reads. But they have this surprising depth of emotion and insight. I didn’t realize until recently that Hornby’s first book (Fever Pitch) is semi-autobiographical. (By the way, it has two film versions. The earlier one stars Colin Firth. You’re welcome.)
Read More“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
“In fact”, said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.”
“Alright then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.
I’m sitting on my back porch with a glass of red wine and a candle just after watching a beautiful sunset. So know that whatever comes next may be colored by the loveliness of this moment.
Babe was our first book club read. Torey and I read it in an afternoon over the Christmas holidays while sitting at opposite ends of the couch snuggled under blankets with Craig reading one of his new books across the room. Couldn’t ask for a more perfect beginning.
Read MoreI vividly remember the first time I ever saw Gilmore Girls. It’s the episode where Rory gets a bad grade and then hits a deer on her way to school trying to make up for it on an important test. I was 15 and had just started going to a private school not all that unlike Chilton. I had come home from a super crappy high school day where I had also gotten my first really bad grade ever and girls at school were mean and unwelcoming to the new kid. I instantly fell in love with the fast paced, witty show. I found myself in tears at the end of the episode because I felt like I found a kindred spirit. As someone who never really fit in with the uber rich, friends-since-the-womb crowd at my private school, I found hope watching the show. Hope that life goes on after high school and that, eventually, everyone finds their place and their people.
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